


Stories Left On Our Skin

by Analinea



Series: Song fics [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Derek comes back to Beacon Hills later, Derek is just a ball of angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Open Ending, Scars, Song fic, Soulmates AU, Stiles is a ball of angst but tries to stay happy, at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 05:07:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10587057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Analinea/pseuds/Analinea
Summary: They say soulmates should share each other's pains and joys. The most common belief is that it's what the witch though when she threw her spell on all of humanity. For some it's a blessing, to find their one and only; romantic or otherwise. For some it's a curse.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Истории, оставленные на нашей коже (Stories Left On Our Skin)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13949547) by [FantikBantik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantikBantik/pseuds/FantikBantik)



> It was supposed to be based on Scars by Tove Lo, but I don't know if it ended up even close to the song haha...I'm still putting it in the song fics!  
> This has been sitting half written on my computer for a while, and I'm getting rid of it :) I just wanted to play a bit with how fucked up the idea of soulmates can be imo (it's cute in most fluffy fic, but let's be honest, it would be so bad irl), but I think it didn't work out like that much, mostly because of the way I chose for soulmates to be connected which sucks in itself...  
> In this universe it would be so bad already, I mean, you share injuries...  
> But I do think that the idea of soulmates as we see it in most AUs (meaning you have a mark or something that brings you to them and it's the One And Only) takes away a lot of life's experiences, good or bad, stages that make you grow up, and takes away chances for a lot of people...
> 
> Ugh, I'm cutting my rant short before it's longer than the fic...

They say soulmates should share each other's pains and joys. The most common belief is that it's what the witch though when she threw her spell on all of humanity.

For some it's a blessing, to find their one and only; romantic or otherwise.

For some it's a curse.

Stiles figures he never had any luck to begin with. So when his eighteen birthday rolls in, really, he doesn't expect much.

Still, it takes him by surprise, the first time he wakes up with a gasp, scalding heat radiating from his forearm where a pink scar runs like it's weeks old already.

Stiles tries, he really does. He tries to stay happy and feel good things. Because all he can feel from his soulmate is pain.

 

He tries to find whoever's on the other side of the bond himself because the Agency is too expensive. The fact that it could either be a girl or a guy doesn't help his research but he's nothing if not persistent.

This person is not in Beacon Hills though, and he starts to lose hope. He doesn't know if it's his own feeling or his soulmates'.

Scars hold stories, they say. He wonders what kind of fucked up tale those tell, the one on his arm, the three parallel gashes on his back, the burn on his calf.

He has time to think about how messed up the idea of soulmates is. He would try not to be one of those person that hopes too much; never finding your soulmate is a possibility. It happens. He's read the stories of people never taking the time to live because they've been waiting too long for someone that never came.

So he'd try. But really, who would want a non-soulmate like him: one that's got too many scars from the person on the other end of his bond.

It makes him hate his soulmate, the feeling growing slowly but steadily.

It makes him hate everyone for a while: his dad that found happiness even if it was to lose Claudia, Scott that feels free to live and love despite knowing these people are not his soulmate, the students that found out they'd known theirs all their lives.

He gets better. Tells himself that someone will want him, eventually, see him and not the marks on his body. That maybe his soulmate will be platonic anyway.

Until one night, when he wakes up screaming.

His father is there in seconds, trying to take Stiles' hands away from where they're clutching at his own face. He feels his dad holding him down on the bed, realizes then that he's writhing.

But the pain is too much.

The day Stiles gets three new scars running down from his forehead to his left cheek, he loses hope.

 

He can't help but to hate his soulmate again. He can't leave the house for two weeks; first because of the pain that won't leave, then because he can't face the world looking and feeling like this.

Scott comes by. He doesn't help and helps at the same time.

They all start looking, even Lydia, because it has to be easy to find someone with an injury so visible?

They don't find anything.

On Stiles' nineteenth birthday, he asks them to stop looking. They're leaving for college soon anyway, he'll meet new people.

Someone will want him eventually. Right?

 

Stiles comes back home for Christmas. He sees his friends again. Some of them didn't talk much during the first months away, but they're back at laughing together quickly. It's almost like they never left.

Stiles feels stronger. There's so many people in college, they're so different. He fits in, no matter his own history.

There's no new scars on him, and he's relieved.

He wishes he would be free of it though. Of asking himself all the time who's he bonded with. Of wondering if they're okay, with the kind of life that leaves these scars.

He still hates them a little, for making him worry when he has to share the burden. For not being careful when he has to be marked for life too.

 

Stiles goes to the cemetery on Christmas eve with his dad, and they leave cookies on his mother's grave. Her favorites. She asked Stiles to help her bake them when he was little, and he hated baking so much it always ended up in food fights when he agreed to.

He smiles at the memory. Wonders, like every year, what it was like for his dad when she died. If he felt it. They never talk about it.

On the way back to the cars, Stiles sees a silent figure standing in front of a bunch of graves, clothed in all black.

“The Hale kid,” his father says softly, “heard he just buried his sister. What a damn tragedy,” he shakes his head as they keep walking.

Stiles can't help but be drawn to the guy. He looks at him as long as his can. Hale doesn't turn away from the graves Stiles knows are empty. Everyone in town knows the story. There's a fresh looking tombstone, dirt still settling.

Just before Stiles has to look back in front of him, the guy looks up and directly at Stiles. From this distance, Stiles can't swear it but he thinks the guy looked at him in surprise.

He shrugs it off. He's used to the stares.

 

Stiles sometimes wonders if he should intentionally leave scars on his soulmate's body. He's considered it, cutting himself deep enough that his soulmate can't ignore the pain, the mark. Just like he can't.

But he's cut the thoughts at the root.

He keeps trying to be as happy as he can. That's the way he wants them to know he's still there. That's the kind of mark he wants to leave on a person that must have a very shitty life if all Stiles can feel is sadness.

He still doesn't try to find them.

 

It's two days after Christmas that it happens.

Stiles house is on fire. The death threat painted in red on the outside wall is clear enough to know that this is revenge on the Sheriff. The letters turn black.

All Stiles can think about is the notebook his mother made for him when she started getting sick, before she was too far gone and couldn't remember who he was.

It's all he has left of her. Pictures and handwritten notes and stories, her love for him on these pages.

Stiles runs inside. He doesn't let the screams from Scott and his dad stop him.

The heat is almost unbearable, hurting his skin without leaving marks yet. Stiles runs up the stairs two at a time, covering his nose and mouth in the crook of his elbow.

He knows exactly where he left the notebook, and his bedroom isn't too touched by the flames. In two seconds, he has it and is out.

But halfway down the stairs, part of the ceiling crashes down in the living room. Stiles is trapped, vision blurring, sweat dripping down his face, his back. He coughs, looks for another way out.

He finds one, starts to run to it. There's a crack.

And then there's blackness.

 

Derek feels empty all the time.

Laura helps him as much as she can, but Derek still feels half dead.

There's sparks of joy buried deep in Derek's gut and he knows it's his soulmate's. He feels sorry for whoever it is, sorry for being so damn sad all the time, for hating himself so much.

Most of all, he's sorry for the times trouble finds the surviving Hales and Derek gets injured. He hopes his soulmate shares his healing along with his pain.

He knows they don't. He tries to pretend, because he has enough guilt as it is.

Laura dies.

Derek doesn't know what makes him stay on his feet.

He goes to Beacon Hill so she can rest as close to their families as she can. Close to the ashes of their happiness. Graves, empty or full, feel meaningless to Derek.

“The Hale kid,” he hears, wants to tune out the pity that'll follow the words, inevitably.

Something makes him frown, though, like a string is pulled from inside of him. He looks up. Watching him without shame is a young man. And on his face are echoes of Derek's own faded wounds.

He tenses up. Freezes. He can't bring himself to run after him.

After all, this guy has to live with Derek's scar, something even Derek doesn't have to do.

Maybe he'll hate him. Maybe he's better without Derek in his life. Because Derek is only tragedy and tears and ashes.

It's not hard to find out who the guy is: if the scars weren't enough to identify him, people love to talk about the Sheriff's kid who has such bad luck with his soulmate.

It makes Derek stay away. He tries to decide what he should do. He doesn't know if he deserves a soulmate after all this. He doesn't know what he wants, if he's brave enough to go see what this guy wants.

He doesn't want hate; he wants hate. He's lost.

The decision is taken out of his hands when the feel of fire on his skin and despair in his heart makes him drop his mug of coffee. He runs out the door in the direction of the black smoke rising in the air.

He barely realizes he's fully shifted.

 

Stiles wakes up with a parched throat, a mask over his mouth, and the nastiest headache.

His dad is asleep next to him, Scott on the other side looking at him with worry. “You idiot,” he says fondly. “You scared the shit out of us.”

“Wha'?” Stiles asks from under the oxygen mask. He remembers flames. He remembers his mother.

“You ran into your house for this,” Scott shows the notebook. Stiles jerks weakly to take it from him, tears in his eyes. He remembers now. Scott gives it to him when he sees Stiles failed attempts to raise his arm enough to take it.

“You're lucky that that Hale dude got you out. He was completely naked,” Scott chuckles softly, “it really weirded out the firemen.”

“Hale dude?” Stiles asks. His father stirs up on his other side.

“Yeah, Derek Hale,” he sleepily answers. “He still in the waiting room.”

There's something in his dad's eyes like when he cracks a case. But then there's only worry and anger. “Don't you ever do that again, son, you understand?”

“Not planning on having another house set on fire,” Stiles jokes, but he sees it amuses exactly no one and sobers up, “Yeah, dad, promise. I'm sorry.” And then he cries.

Strangely, when his dad embraces him, he thinks about his soulmate.

Wonders if they felt his distress. He wishes it would bring them to him in a way his happiness never managed to. Hopes it will.

 

Derek, in the waiting room, knows it's time to stop running. He hears Stiles wake up.

He knocks on the door.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I stopped there because I didn't really have it in me to go further than that haha I'm just tired of writing a hundred different version of the same Stiles-wakes-up-in-the-hospital scene, which probably means I should stop sending him there...idk
> 
>  
> 
> **Kudos and comments, as usual guys, are very much appreciated as it's the only payment we authors get <3 **
> 
>  
> 
> On [tumblr](http://kinsbounescream.tumblr.com)


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